The DDoS attack -- which stands for distributed denial of service -- severely limited accessibility to The Pirate Bay, according to the BBC.

From the BBC:

A provider of DDoS defense systems said that it was unlikely that the attack came from hacking group Anonymous.

"There will be further attacks, but what's significant about this whole story is that people think that it is the Anonymous attacking a site which is typically a type of site that they defend," said Andre Stewart of Corero Network Security.

"It could be the record labels, or a government somewhere that has had enough of not being able to catch The Pirate Bay, it could be just one person who had rented some cloud power from Amazon and is sitting in a cafe, and is able to launch an attack."

Evernote Becoming Beast in the East

Evernote went into its China launch with about 1.1 million users in China, averaging about 4,500 new users per day, according to The Next Web.

But the company's general manager in Asia Pacific, Troy Malone, says things have taken off. From The Next Web:

... following the launch, downloads there have rocketed. Based on the first week, Malone says that daily new user numbers in China have been greater than its two biggest markets -- Japan and the U.S. -- combined.

"The U.S. and Japan have traditionally been by far our largest user registrations, but China just eclipsed both of those. It's like we unlocked a whole new Earth that we didn't even know existed," Malone told The Next Web.

The company declined to reveal exact numbers, but Malone said he is confident the initial surge isn't a fluke.

The company's second biggest Asian market is Japan, where is reportedly has 6 million registered users.

IT's Alive!

China's IT spending is likely to surpass Japan's by 2013, which would make it Asia's largest market for IT goods and services, according to ZD Net.

ZD Net cites a report from research firm International Data Corporation, released Thursday, which states Chinese IT spending will reach US$173 billion in 2013 compared to Japan's $166 billion.

From ZD Net:

The consumer IT market is expected to expand 29.8 percent this year, said Wu Lianfeng, associate vice president at IDC China, who pointed to devices such as smartphones, tablets and smart terminals as key growth drivers.

As personal consumer electronics become more intelligent, they are also penetrating small and medium-sized cities in China, Wu added. "Consumption upgrade, smart homes, intelligent housing and property management will fuel the rapid growth of manufacturing and retail businesses as well as the service sector in the industrial chain, resulting in strong IT demand."

IDC attributed the expected growth in part to China's 12th "Five Year Plan," which stressed economic growth in the tech arena.

Russian to Cash In on Facebook IPO

A Russian steel tycoon named Alisher B. Usmanov is set to cash in on a 2009 investment he made in Facebook, according to The New York Times.

Usmanov's expected bounty will be "in the same league" as many of Facebook's early backers.

From The New York Times:

Usmanov, an industrial and media magnate who has demonstrated a keen ability to take advantage of the opportunities that appear in a financial disaster, is reaping the rewards of an ambitious bet on Facebook made amid the global economic recession in 2009.

As other investors were demanding tough terms, he said in an interview this week, he and his Russian business associates were willing to buy almost 10 per cent of the company while giving up the voting rights on those shares to Facebook's founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg.

Now the Russian-led investments of less than $900 million, made through two entities, Mail.ru and Digital Sky Technologies, will be worth more than $6 billion, based on the midpoint of the $34 to $38 price range that Facebook's bankers have set for the stock.

Tech Trek is a blog that looks at tech news from around the world. David Vranicar is a freelance journalist currently living in the Netherlands. His ECT News Network archive, with links to articles and podcasts, is
available here. You can email him at david.vranicar@newsroom.ectnews.com